In the aftermath of the Amadu Diallo verdict and the subsequent police
shooting of Patrick Dorismond, New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani's political
future hangs in the balance. The mayor has been weakened by the perception
that he has divided the city on racial lines and is incapable of repairing
the breach. The conventional wisdom now has the odds of him becoming the
next Senator from the state of New York at less than even money. So it
not surprising that in the Mayor's weakened state his political opponents
would circle above him like vultures awaiting a particular tasty meal.
What is surprising is that these are not birds of the Left but of the
Right.

Conservatives have always had a problem with Rudy Giuliani. He is pro-choice,
pro-gay, pro-gun control. He is not a conservative and he never has been.
When he ran for mayor he was cross-endorsed not by the Conservative Party
of New York but by the state's Liberal Party. He endorsed Mario Cuomo
for Governor in 1994. The conservative case against Giuliani is solid.
On paper there is little reason for a conservative to support Rudolph
Giuliani. In reality there is one reason to vote for Giuliani that reason
trumps all others. Rudy Giuliani did what no one else would or could.
He cleaned up New York City. Is he wrong on several issues? Sure. Could
he learn to work and play better with others? Absolutely. However, when
New York was devolving into an embarrassing cesspool one man stood up
and took back his city block by block until it was safe to walk the streets
again. I grew up in Northern New Jersey and though I am not a true New
Yorker I remember the city before Giuliani. Before 1993 it was an embarrassment,
now it a place to be proud of. The mayor brought the city back to life
again. That is no small accomplishment and he should be rewarded for a
job well done.

Some will argue that Giuliani is indeed an outstanding mayor but that
the qualities that make him a good executive do not necessarily translate
into success as a United States Senator, a legislative office. This is
a valid argument. It may be true that Rudy is not made of the stuff of
Senators. But I believe that the mayor has earned the right to prove us
wrong on that score. No one in 1993 would have thought that in 1998 New
York would have had fewer murders than Chicago, a city three times smaller
in population. No one in 1993 would have believed that you could scale
back the welfare rolls and at the same time reduce crime, thus proving
the conservative principle that poverty and crime do not have a causal
relationship. Seldom does a leader come along who stands up, proclaims
what he is going to do, and then actually does it. Rudy Giuliani had a
vision of a New York where middle class and working class people could
live and work in a clean city without fear. Rudy did not just dream about
his vision, he worked very hard everyday to make it real. He did not care
if people thought of him as arrogant or insensitive. He did not care if
people called him a fascist. Rudy just went to work to do what he set
out to do. Is Rudy Giuliani a conservative? Absolutely not. He is a man
who did his job for six years and is asking for his promotion. As they
said in the movie Donnie Brasco, Rudy deserves to get "upped".

So to Rick Lazio, Randall Terry, the Conservative Party of New York and
others who wish to pick a fight, I say let this one go. To the Conservative
academicians, strategists, pundits, and think tank scholars who put theory
and philosophy above the quality of the candidate, I say this is a fight
you ought not to make. This is the exception to the rule. The middle and
working class people Rudy Giuliani represents are people who work hard
to try and make a life for themselves and their families. They respect
what the Mayor did for the city. Anyone who wishes to represent these
populists and conservatives in the future should allow the mayor to make
his case for Senate unfettered and give him room to drive the final stake
in the heart of Clintonism.